10 days have passed

10 days have passed. In these 10 days I've done quite a lot: chem cct (done well :). english showcase portfolio (good). RE interim report (not that bad), mostly repackaging into something somewhat appealing... Maths TA (screwed). And best of all, my last debate for interhouse debates, which was much better than expected.

THBT the environment belongs to rich-- We were opposing. Preparation for the debate was less than intense--Ern Xu turned up for 2 prep sessions thankfully, me and Dewin once, Jie Min none. We were against the secondary 1 debaters.

I think what allowed us to win was not the usual "determination", "teamwork", "effort" etc, it was that we had nothing to lose. We've lost 2 matches, and in order to get into semi-finals, we need at least 2 wins. Evidently there is no chance at all for ever qualifying. I guess this was the defining factor which led to our victory. It was the lack of pressure from our side and the subsequent confidence to go out there just for enjoyment, for the sake of speaking out that did it. At least for me, I was less nervous and did what I had to do. I didn't commit any mistakes of disjoint argument--not linking back to the yardstick, motion, and "how our side wins"--to my teammates' and my own surprise. It was just me and Ben Mark, my friend, nodding his head away at what I have to say as I reason my case.

I received my first compliment in debating. Ashish said that if I smoothen my speech, minimise little bumps, had a good conclusion (when time's up and the bell's ringing incessantly, I just said "go with the opposition" and sat down :), I would actually be school debater standard.

Thanks teammates Ern Xu, Jie Min, Dewin for being such good buddies; Ashish for being such a wonderful and pro debater and teacher; fong for prepping; Ms Cho for showing up at debates and supporting us...

We went celebrating after that, just Ashish, Choon How, and me. It wasn't celebration per se. It was an excuse to go to Ashish's house to watch "House". All the while Ashish rants about how Hugh Laurie's an amazing American though he's British in real life.

Burned a Friday night. Now I've only 1 1/4 days for physics cct and lit laputa peer teaching on monday.

workworkwork

RE work: not looking good at all...
Chem work for CCT: 1/4 done
Physics work for IJPO: bad bad bad; don't even talk about it
English Portfolio: thought of theme, but haven't really sat down and slog it out...

I wonder (aloud) whether wenjie has a blog-- his list would definitely be longer

impromptu debate

Had an impromptu debate with 1h prep time... did really badly, only finishing my rebuttals at the 5 minute mark, and that's seriously overtime, which leaves me 1 min for my tenuous substantive. The other 2nd speaker (right after me) was so good that he pushed the odds against us, and by the time Dewin came, it's as though they've won already. So it was sort of my fault that we lost, as was the last time.

Surprisingly, I was able to talk for 6 minutes non-stop, an amazing feat for someone who speaks hardly 1000 words a day. I ended up feeling proud of myself even though we lost.

1 last debate- I'm going all out to win this!